Kirana stores are the fastest growth channel for FMCG sales: Study

According to data from SnapBizz, consumers who visit modern trade stores usually end up buying 35% more than what they intendedJohn Sarkar | TNN | October 13, 2017, 08:25 IST

Forget modern trade. Kirana stores are proving to be the growth engines for the Indian Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) market, finds a study. These neighbourhood mom-and-pop stores account for at least three-fourth of overall FMCG sales in the country and have been growing faster compared with any other channels.

This has prompted market researcher Nielsen to partner with Bengaluru-based tech startup SnapBizz to embark on a large-scale exercise to digitise kirana stores across the country . You will soon be able to not only track stock of goods at your neighbourhood kirana store but order through your smartphone app as well. While currently, SnapBizz has digitised around 3,000 stores across the country , it plans to increase the number to 10,000 and follow it up with more to reach scale. There are more than 10 million kirana stores in India.

The stores are equipped with tablets and LED screens and run on proprietary software provided by SnapBizz. Nielsen will be able to gain real-time insights from orders placed by consumers.

“Access to this wealth of data offers a unique opportu nity to manufacturers to optimize their go-to-market efforts in traditional trade that has often been considered a “black-box“,“ said Prayag Bhatia, executive director of Nielsen.

According to data from SnapBizz, consumers who visit modern trade stores usually end up buying 35% more than what they intended. In comparison, lack of visibility of products causes kirana stores to lose out and consumers buy 95-105% of what they originally intended. SnapBizz founder & CEO Prem Kumar said, “We have tailwinds of GST in our favour because the system makes it easy for retailers and case studies have proven that digitization improves profitability .“ The companies plan to start with top 20-30 towns across the country and ramp up the exercise to 50 in a short span of time.